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Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Dealing with Jealousy

The tale is always the same.

I log on to my Tumblr, ready for some prime procrastination. I see a few things that make me laugh, maybe one or two things that are funny enough to reblog. Then, inevitably, I stumble upon a picture that's something like this:

OMG just love all my fans so glad I got to have such a great signing/tour/release party! Can't believe all of my books sold out! Did I mention that this is the first manuscript I ever wrote and also did I mention that I'm a few years YOUNGER than Meghan Jashinsky???

Okay, so maybe it isn't worded exactly like that. But that's what I see sometimes. And it's hard to look at pictures like that and not feel really discouraged and--to be honest--pretty jealous. I want that so badly, and I'm just not there yet. I've written a couple of manuscripts that were really, colossally bad. There are things I can maybe salvage from them for another story at another time, when I'm skilled enough to tell those stories effectively. But man, do I want to be practiced enough to write them all well now.

I know I'm not the only one who feels this way. So here's three things I do when I start feeling this jealousy:

Recognize that part of why I'm not there yet is on me. No I am not there yet, and yes I so badly want to be there. But the fact is, I haven't written fast enough or revised my existing manuscripts enough that they are ready to be queried. I can struggle with a different kind of jealousy when I've begun querying and there are actually things going on that are beyond my control.

Tell myself that their success doesn't mean I won't be successful. Because it doesn't. One author doing well doesn't mean that no other author can do well that year. Actually, one author writing a book that kids absolutely love probably increases literacy, thereby upping the chances of my future book being read.

Get off the effing internet. Because those books aren't going to write themselves. It's really easy to be jealous of those authors who's backstories I know very little about, when I haven't done the work they already did to get there. But I can do it (and so can you)!

1 comment:

And here I am thinking you're already a million steps ahead of me, because you've already finished school, have a "big kid" job, and a YouTube page with almost 1000 subscribers! I guess it's all about perspective. We'll all get there someday, I guess! Keep up the great work!